SquidgeWorld Archive

Chapter Text

Section One: World again and time.

(March 1st, 1999. Earth Prime.)

Anya, (once Anyanka, the patron spirit of scorned women,) stepped morosely down the Sunnydale High stairwell. All of Anya's plans had been ruined, by that holier-than-thou redheaded witch and her friends. The vampire double who had been brought out of the alternate universe - the universe Anya needed to change because HER wishstone had been destroyed in it - had been sent back, and Anya didn't have any idea how to go about restoring the connection.

'Willow' and the librarian had even warned the current custodian of the local magic store, (though that place went through more shopkeepers than... but never mind that,) to not co-operate with any of Anya's requests. Anya didn't know how to get more books, to research what she had to learn.

"Hello, Anya," a tall, rather handsome guy muttered as Anya stepped down onto the staircase's landing. Anya passed him before she realized that he wasn't any of the simpering teenagers she'd met since she assumed this cover at the high-school; or since it had unexpectedly become her life. She turned and walked back, knowing that there was something unusual about this boy, but not knowing what.

"Hey, don't you recognize me," he asked jokingly as Anya walked up. "Call me David."

"D'hafrith?" Anya breathed in sudden relief. "You've changed your mind; you've come to help me, right?" Anya's hope was so thick in the air it could have been cut with a dagger.

"Um, I'm afraid not," the young lower being said. "Dad would consign me to the void if I went against his sentence." D'hafrith was the offspring of D'Hoffryn, Lord Elder of the Lower Beings, who had decreed what would become of Anya after she had lost her powers, confining the former wishgranter into the mortal life she had taken to approached Cordelia Chase with. "But I'm thinking that there's a great future, so to speak, in the kind of ruckus you were making when you lost your powers. Not just little acts of torment, but creating entire worlds of misery and pain."

"Huh?" Anya said, somewhat confused by all this. "A future in it? How??"

D'hafrith lowered his voice and drew Anya closer to him. "Oh, you don't know, do you? The Lower beings loved Wishworld. It was the talk of Abyssia."

Anya frowned at that. "Well, if they liked it so much, why wouldn't anyone help me get my powers back??" She pouted at the mere thought of how many of her old 'friends' had rejected her.

"Because of the stakes, girl," D'harith told her with a shake of his human head. "If you had pulled that caper off, with your powers intact, Abyssia would have been your oyster. There was nothing that would have been denied you. It would have been the ultimate win. That's why nobody's sorry about what you've lost - you could have won so much more." He ended that discussion with a very mortal-like shrug. "Anyways, I thought this was the ideal spot to start the wishworlding again. You should stick around, Anya. With the kind of chaos I'm gonna be raising, you might find a way to redeem yourself yet."

Anya was stunned speechless for a second. Unfortunately, D'hafrith didn't give her any more time to absorb this development. "Oh, there's my target. See ya round." And he dashed off. "Buffy? Buffy Summers? Um, I'm new here..."

* * *

"Hey, Giles," Xander said as he rushed into the library. "What's... up? Oh, I guess that would be your skirt, Cordy, would't it?" Cordelia was the only person Xander could see in the library, wearing a skimpy little red dress, incredibly short. "Uh, wow, um, Wesley isn't here today. Meeting with council bigwigs down in Los Angeles."

Cordy scowled at him. "That... that wasn't why I was here, you nitbrain," she informed him nastily. "I... I was, um, uh... I was looking for Willow. Wanting to see if she was, um, feeling better after, the, um, thing last week."

"Oh, yeah, right," Xander scoffed. "You don't care about Willow. You were just grabbing another opportunity to hit on Mister Whyndham-Price." He pronounced the name with a mocking British accent. "The thought of the two of you together, aside from being illegal, it's thoroughly nauseating."

"Oh, right," Cordelia shot back. "Well, at least I've moved on. Can't you get it through into your peanut-sized brain that who I want to date is none of your business anymore? I dumped your sorry butt. And, for your information," she continued relentlessly, "if a refined, elegant British gentleman and I should want to spend time together, that is not illegal."

"Oh, yeah, right," Xander told her. "Maybe not for any other girl, but a nympho like you..."

"Nympho?" Cordelia replied, laughing. "If I'm a nympho, how come you dated me for nine months and didn't get any? Explain that!" And with that, she strode imperiously out of the library.

* * *

"You've been a lot of help," David told Buffy as she led him to his fictional 'class.' "I, uh, well, I'm sorry if I'm being abrupt here, but are you dating anyone? I'd like to take you out to dinner sometime, but..."

"Yeah, well, I am, kinda," Buffy said, somewhat uncertainly. "It's kinda hard to explain. An ex-boyfriend and I are trying to figure out where we stand. We've got all kinds of issues to deal with, and things that we can't afford to do, but we still love each other, you know?"

David nodded empathetically. "Been there. Wouldn't it be so much easier if love just worked out right the first time?"

"Boy, don't I wish it could have," Buffy sighed, and turned away to head to her own class.

"Done," David whispered. The wish-power he had stolen from his father glowed vaguely, from within his hand, where he was keeping it, and the timeline began to unravel...

* * *

(January 20th, 1998, WishWorld 2, for convenience.)

Angel woke up in bed. For a second he didn't remember how he got there. Then he realized that his hand was running through someone's hair, and it all came back to him.

"Morning, honey," he said quietly.

The body next to him shifted and stirred. "Good morning, my Angel," Buffy said, opening her eyes and shifting over to kiss him.

* * *

"And do what?" Cordy told Xander sarcastically. "Besides be afraid and die??"

"Well, nobody's asking you to go, Cordelia," Xander answered. "If the vampires need grooming tips we'll give you a call."

"Cordelia has a point," Giles admitted reluctantly. "Now, i-if Buffy and Angel were, were -harmed... then we don't stand to fare much better."

"Yeah?" Xander said, starting to lose his temper. "Well, those of us who were born with feelings are gonna DO something about this."

"Xander," Jenny started patronizingly.

"No, Xander's right!" Willow shouted excitedly, cutting Ms. Calendar off. "My God, you people are all... well, I'm upset, and I can't think of a mean word right now, but that's what you are, and we're going to the factory." She started to storm off towards the library doors.

"Yeah!" Xander said, and turned to follow her, but right then Buffy came through the doors the other way.

"Could someone cover the windows?" she asked out loud.

"Buffy!" Willow called out.

"We were just going to rescue you..." Xander began.

"We're fine," Buffy said, as Giles drew the heavy drapes over the library's windows. Buffy knocked on the door, and Angel quickly slipped inside. Jenny noticed the glowing smiles that passed between him and Buffy, before more solemn expression took over.

"Humpty Dumpty's back together again," the vampire muttered quietly.

"The Judge?" Giles asked, instantly concerned. "What can you tell us?"

"Not much," Buffy related sadly. "I, um, I kicked him. It was like a sudden fever. If he'd got his hands on me..."

* * *

Xander picked up the book titled "Demon battles of the dark ages," and headed back to the stacks to put it back and get another likely candidate. Once he was between the shelves, he realized that he wasn't alone there. Cordelia was standing behind of one of the free-standing bookcases, looking intently at a different volume. "Did you find anything?" he asked casually, picking a place in the shelf at random and sliding his book in hopefully.

Out of the corner of his eye, Xander could see Cordelia shake her head. "This book mentions the Judge, but nothing useful. Big, scary - no weapon forged can stop him - took an army to take him down." She sighed softly. "Blah, blah, blah."

Xander fiddled a book in his hand as he thought. "We need some insight, a weak spot."

"Well, we're not gonna find it here." She put her book back onto the shelf. Xander thought to himself a moment, then walked tentatively over to Cordelia. Once he was right behind her, the brunette turned around to face him, looking at him questioningly.

"Sorry I snapped at you before," Xander began.

"Well, I'm reeling from that new experience," Cordelia shot back, raising one of her elegant eyebrows for emphasis. It was true - she and Xander had been trading insults, well, really for about a year now, since Buffy had come to Sunnydale. In point of fact, it had been the anger of their arguments that had started whatever other sparks were flying between the two of them now.

But what the hell. Now that he had apologized, Xander might as well actually sell the damn thing. "I was crazed," he continued with more feeling. "I wasn't thinking."

"I know," Cordelia pointed out. "You were too busy rushing off to die for your beloved Buffy." She looked downwards briefly, her eyes almost closing. "You'd never die for me."

A nasty comeback crowded into Xander's head, but somehow, looking into Cordy's pretty hazel eyes, he couldn't quite say it. "Well, uh, you never know, do you," he muttered, embarassed.

Cordelia looked up at him, not quite sure how to take what he had just said. Xander wasn't sure either. "Come on," he said, trying to get the conversation onto a different tack. "Can't we just kiss and make up?"

"Oh, okay, I guess," Cordelia said. Her face broke reluctantly out into a rare, honest, smile. It was as if moonlight was shining off of her face. Xander smiled too, and Cordelia brought her arms up to Xander's neck and guided his lips to hers. After a short while, Cordelia giggled and whispered, "Aren't we supposed to be researching?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot." Reluctantly, they broke apart, and Xander went back to the shelf he had been considering before. Cordelia walked up behind him, smiling, and after taking a look back at her Xander passed one tome over to her, and retrieved one for himself.

* * *

"Do you know what it is," Enyos Calderash asked Janna, "this thing called vengeance?" His niece tried to speak, but he cut her off angrily. "To the modern man, vengeance is an idea, a word. Payback. One thing for another, like commerce." He pointed a finger into the air defiantly. "Not with us. Vengeance is a living thing. It passes through generations. It commands. It kills." He stood up, with grim determination picked up a deadly dagger from a table to his side. "And when vengeance demands, we play our part."

"What are you going to do?" Jenny asked, suddenly frightened.

"You say that Angel was truly happy?" Enyos demanded, not waiting for her answer, knowing what it would be. "Then the time has come. This not supposed to happen - for him to experience even a moment of true happiness, of contentment. One moment when that soul does not plague his thoughts." He ran his thumb delicately over the blade of the dagger, testing its sharpness. "It must be balanced, so that vengeance will be complete. Balanced with pain and grief."

"What??" Jenny was up on her feet now too, outraged. "You can't kill the Slayer. And what if you do - who will stop the demon then? You can't throw that many lives away, in the name of one dead girl from our clan!"

"It is not justice we serve," Enyos reminded her coldy. "It is vengeance."

"Then we are all fools," Jenny shot back, full of anger, anger at him, at herself, at the whole narrow-minded clan. She grabbed her purse and stormed out of her uncle's room.

* * *

"What about the Judge?" Willow asked Xander. "Where do we stand?"

"On a pile of really boring books that say exactly the same thing."

"Lemme guess - 'no weapon forged.'" Willow sighed.

"'It took an army,'" Xander confirmed.

"Yeah, where's an army when you need one?"

"Buffy?" Angel called out. He had gone back underground that morning, Buffy saying that it was too dangerous for him to be in the school for long during the daylight hours.

"Huh?" Xander muttered, caught off guard. "Uh, I guess she's in the library."

"The radio news said there was a gunman at the Multiplex," Angel reported. "I think it's actually the Judge. We gotta roll."

"But... we don't have a plan yet!" Willow interjected.

"Buffy will stop him," Angel said firmly. "She always does."

* * *

Buffy was the first through the school doors, and, since she didn't have driviness of her own, turned around to urge her friends along faster. Suddenly, Jenny Calendar's voice rang out across the parking lot. "Buffy, look out!"

Buffy looked up into the reflection of the glass windows on the doors. An older man, balding and moustached, was standing behind her, about to plunge something into her heart from behind. Buffy ducked to the side, but the man followed her down with lightning-quick reflexes, his dagger still seeking out Buffy's heart. Suddenly, instinctively, Buffy's stake was in her hand, and then moving to plunge into his heart.

Buffy expected her attacker to disintegrate - after all, who would have a motive to attack her, now of all times, but one of Spike's vampire henchmen? But he did not. For a horrified moment, all Buffy could notice was the thin drawnness of the man's face, the sunken depth of his eyes. The man that Buffy had just killed. Suddenly the blood started to flow, from the hole in the man's chest, and from his mouth. He sprawled out over the grass in a dead heap.

"Oh, my god, Buffy," Jenny said, coming up near Buffy. The others were coming towards her, too, gathering around the two bodies on Sunnydale High's lawn - one living, the other dead.

"Who was it?" Buffy asked, her voice breaking. "Did you know him?"

"He - he was my uncle," Jenny said nervously.

"Your uncle!!" Buffy moaned, the wind knocked out of her.

"Come on, let's get you inside," Giles muttered, and Angel and Xander propped Buffy up between them and led her inside.

"What..." Willow went over to Giles, concerned. "The Multiplex - Judge attacking..."

"I'm not sure that there's anything that can be done about that, now at any rate," Giles whispered to her. "Buffy's not in any shape to fight the Judge right now, you can see that. She's taken a human life, for real this time." Willow nodded, remembering the incident with Joyce Summers' robotic boyfriend. "Until she recovers from that shock, to send her up against the Judge would be to sign her death certificate."

* * *

(January 26th.)

"Oh, I got a leg here and it's pissed!" Xander called out.

Buffy and Willow hurried through the burnt-out remains of Buffy's house to to help him restrain the demon limb. After finally coming to terms with the death of Jenny's uncle (and the unpleasant shock of Jenny's secret mission in Sunnydale,) Buffy had stopped the Judge, in the end - by luring it to her house and blowing the house up. They were in the process of 'picking up the pieces' right now, quite literally. But the immortal demon had rampaged unstopped around the town for several days, killing thousands of people - decimating the human population of Sunnydale and shattering the veil of civilized normality that hung over the town. Buffy's mom had been burned from the inside out, as had many of their other parents and casual friends.

* * *

"He's dead!" Drusilla complained. "Our Judge, our demon. She got him."

"Yes, but look at all the mayhem he caused, pet," Spike said, laying a comforting hand on her arm. "This town is ripe for the taking. The Slayer can't defend it all, not anymore. And we're in a perfect position to move against her."

"Ooh," Drusilla cooed. "Can I change a few of her friends, Spike? I'd love to have some new playmates... like that darling precious boy. The tall, slender one!"

Spike felt a surge of jealousy, then contained it, realizing how he could get in on this. "You can have him, princess," he told Dru, nodding and smiling. "If I can make his lovely little cheerleader playmate!!"

Part 2

(March 1st, 1999, Wishworld 2.)

Buffy gasped as a bright, all-pervading white light grew around her, then faded and died out. What was going on? She was still in the Sunnydale High corridor, but it looked very different. The lights were all out, and no-one was around. Someone lightly touched her arm, and Buffy jumped in surprise.

She turned to see who it was, and the jumpy feeling eased off, to be replaced by a quiet and intensely puzzling thought. It was Angel who had rubbed her arm reassuringly. He was carrying a knife in his other hand, though, and was wearing tough, possibly reinforced leathers.

Buffy said the first thing that popped into her head. "Angel, what are you doing here??"

Angel looked back at her with the same surprise Buffy had felt when she had first recognized him. "I'm helping you, Buffy, remember? Patrol the school for vampires..." He waved back, and Buffy suddenly realized that they weren't the only ones around. Larry and a girl that Buffy didn't recognize were standing behind them, carrying a cross and a bottle of holy water, respectively. Buffy was wearing a thick jean jacket, she realized, with two stakes packed inside a customized inside pocket.

"I mean, how did you get in here, Angel?" Buffy clarified. "It's daylight." Even though the doors and windows seemed to be boarded up so that very little light got through. "What's with the school? Where is everyone? Why would vampires be here??"

Angel was really worried about her now, from the look he gave her. "Buffy, are you feeling alright? You might have been hit by a memory loss spell or something..."

"Not quite it," Buffy muttered, shaking him off. "There's been a change in reality, or something. I was talking with this new guy, and... oh, man!! I made a wish. That guy must have been some kind of wish demon, like Anya."

"Like who??" Angel said, a frown crossing his face.

Buffy sighed. "I'm too out of touch with this world. I need to get brought back up to speed, quick! Patrol's over. Is there, um, some kind of safe place we can go? Who are we working with in this reality, anyways?"

Angel was still looking at her strangely, but he led the way to the basement access stairs. "Uh, well, there's Rupert Giles and Jenny Calendar, Willow and Amy..."

"The same old guys," Buffy said, nodding. "Pretty much. Xander and Cordelia?"

There was a gasp from behind her. "They were taken," Angel muttered.

Buffy's jaw dropped as she stepped into the underground tunnel leading away from the school. "Taken?? By whom?"

* * *

Mayor William 'Spike' the Bloody laughed to himself as he sat up. Everything was coming up black roses for him these days. He was in charge of this whole damn town - nobody was safe from him, not even in the sunlight. He and Dru had built up an army of loyal soldiers who could withstand the light of day - human beings, whether mercenary, depraved, or mind-controlled. Undead beings and various monsters...

Well, no time to just sit and gloat in his achievements. There were new victories to prepare for. Spike strode out of his chamber into the great hall. The windows in this impressive room had been replaced with stained glass in dark colors, deep blue, rich purple, blood red, and so on. Even at the height of the afternoon sun the windows yielded only mood lighting acceptable to Spike's taste.

Aside from a few guardsmen at the door, the room was almost empty. Spike's attention was immediately drawn towards a pair of figures about ten feet away. The lovely brunette vampire bared her fangs and sank them quickly into the neck of the bookish, but still handsome teenaged young man. She sucked and lapped at his blood for half a minute, until by chance she happened to look up and see Spike standing there, watching her.

"Spike!!" Cordelia Chase gushed, pleased to see her sire. "There's a little blood left in this one," she said, gesturing to Owen Thurman. "Do you want it?"

"Not if you can finish him off," Spike told her with a pleased smile. "I'll fetch some cute little bit of honey out of the holding tank when I get hungry." Cordelia turned back to Owen, draining him dry, and then stepped towards Spike, waving a negligent hand for the guardsvamps to take Thurman's body away.

"So, you're looking captivating," Spike said, running his eyes over Cordelia's body and outfit. Cordy was wearing a tight black dress that left her shoulders free, although there was a short sleeve (really just a loop of material,) around each of her arms. The neckline was a broad scoop, baring Cordelia's upper torso down to the top third of her cleavage and firm breasts, and the back dipped even further. The dress's skirt was close-fitting and came to an end just above Cordelia's shapely knees, and she wore leather boots.

"So, it's your night off tonight," Spike reminded his pretty little vampire child. "Have you got any plans for how you'd like to spend it? With Xander, for instance??"

Cordy giggled. "I dunno, we were thinking we might swing out to Blackton and kill a few high schoolers out there. There isn't that much pickings left in Sunnydale."

"I know," Spike commiserated. If only they could root out that damn resistance, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her cronies, Spike would stake most of his retinue himself - it was costing too many of the human lives in Sunnydale to keep them all fed. But while there was still a dangerous center of armed resistance on the Hellmouth, Spike knew that he couldn't afford to do that.

"Hello!!" Xander Harris' voice rang into the room. "Um... Spike?? I think you'd better come here..."

Spike shared a sidelong glance with Cordelia and dashed off, following Xander's voice. As Spike had expected, it led them to Drusilla's chamber. Xander's chest was bare, his lower body covered only by thin boxer shorts, and Drusilla was wearing a sexy, lacy chemise. "Everything was fine," Xander muttered, "and then she..." Drusilla was writing about on the bed in apparent distress.

"It's alright," Spike grunted at Xander. Even though he and Drusilla had an arrangement regarding Cordelia and Xander, he still hated to be reminded that another vampire was touching his black goddess like that. "She's just having one of her visions. What is it, Dru? What do you see??"

"Everything's changed," Drusilla moaned. "It's been this way for a year, but it didn't use to be, it used to be so much worse for us. And now people have come from the other way, the Vampire Slayer, and the one who changed everything. Ahh!" Drusilla drew in a sharp breath in shock. "He's coming to see us, my sweet, and I'm scared of what he might want. He could change it all back..."

"Who is this you're talking about, pet?" Spike muttered, frowning.

* * *

"Hello again, Anya," D'hafrith said, walking up to the scared, tired, and hungry girl who was walking along the center of the street as carefully as she could, trying not to get in any shade. "So, how do you like the world of this wish?"

"It sucks royally, David," Anya grumbled. "And I haven't had a chance to get my wishstone back, like you said I would."

"Oh, no?" David said, winking at her with his human face. "Think about it, Anyanka. In the last world, you were stuck in limbo, not quite a mortal, not quite a Wishmistress. But now, well, if your own timeline had been reversed along with the rest of this world's history..."

"I would have become a Wishmistress again," Anya said uncertainly. "Which I couldn't be, since I haven't rescued my wishstone from its destined destruction. It would be paradoxical."

"Right," D'hafrith said. "So?"

"So what??" Anya burst out. Whatever D'hafrith was trying to lead her up to, she didn't see it.

"So, to avoid paradox, you had to be given a mortal timeline that you could be reversed along, to determine how you would fit into this alternate. You are no longer the Lady Anyanka, forced to play the role of Anya Page, your last cover identity. You ARE Anya Page - complete with parents and a life history. You're all the way mortal."

"And this is a good thing?"

"Possibly." David gestured significantly with her ring. "What is it that mortals can do and that the beings of Abyssia cannot?"

And suddenly it hit Anya. "They can have their wishes granted! I wish to be taken to the timeline in which my wishstone was destroyed - three days before that happened."

"Done!" D'hafrith said, smiling. And Anya disappeared.

* * *

"So," Buffy said, sitting in the communal hall of Giles' condo complex, now the base of the resistance fighters. Taking a deep breath, Buffy tried to sum up the difference between her world and this one in two questions, just to settle things. "So, we didn't kill the Judge for a week, and he pretty much trashed Sunnydale? And Angel didn't go evil??"

"Uh, no, Buffy," Giles said with a solemn nod. "Why would Angel have turned evil??"

"Um, it was..." Buffy tried to find the right way, or at least a somewhat delicate way to put it. "It was... it was a condition of his curse. One moment of perfect happiness, and he loses the soul and becomes big demon baddie vampire again."

"And how did he experience that moment?" Giles asked, but both Jenny and Angel put up restraining hands, guessing that the answer was best not gone into.

"Yes, my uncle Enyos said something about that at the time," Jenny told Buffy, nodding. "That Angel was not supposed to experience peace over the course of his vengeance. But something had gone wrong."

"I bet that's what the wishing demon did," Buffy said, nodding. "Kept the curse from wearing off. But still, how could that..." But suddenly Buffy was starting to realize how many bad consequences that beneficial change in her past could have had. Xander never told her how he had gotten the idea of stealing the rocket launcher to defeat the Judge - Angelus' attack on the school might have had something to do with it. And Angelus had gone to join Spike and Dru - who knew how that might have affected the timetable of the Judge's attack?

Was it possible that losing the person Buffy loved had been the only thing that could have saved Sunnydale from the Judge? "Your uncle, Jenny," Buffy said, trying to change the subject slightly. "What happened to him?"

Jenny Calendar choked up, and Willow took up the narration. The group that was meeting, apparently the high councils of the anti-vampire guerilla underground, was apparently composed of four couples: Buffy and Angel, Giles and Jenny, Willow and Percy West, Amy Madison and Oz. Buffy didn't get how those last two couples had formed up, or what had happened to Willow and Oz's relationship. They had, just, been dating when the timelines changed, after all. Buffy's birthday party had been their debut engagement.

"He attacked you, Buffy," Willow said, uncertainly. "Right when word first came of the Judge's attack. He was obsessed with keeping Angel miserable, and you had made him happy. So he had to try to kill you. He didn't stand a chance, of course." Willow sighed. "You thought he was a vampire, one of Spike's men. Staked him through the heart. And then promptly went a little crazy yourself when you realized he was a living man."

"So, I bet that's one more thing that kept me from wasting the Judge on time," Buffy said, sighing. "What's the situation now? I know that Xander and Cordelia are vampires, and that Spike seems to be in control of more of the town than we are..."

"He's got everything," Percy told her, sighing. "We fight as best we can, but we're losing. Spike's got goons now that can do his dirty work even in the daytime, and he's extending his influence into the nightlives of more and more other cities."

"Damn!" Buffy swore. "Giles, we need to do some serious research about these wishbringers. They created all this. From what I heard after the vampire Willow incident, if we can defeat the demon responsible for all this, we can change it all back."

* * *

David, (D'hafrith,) walked straight through the wall of Drusilla's chamber, thanks to a little pass-wall spell. Dru yelped when she saw David, clinging to Spike. "It's him! It's him!!"

Xander stepped forward and grabbed D'hafrith by the back of his neck. "You've done something to upset the lady. I don't know what, but what say I pound you into the ground to make her feel better?"

"I wouldrgch!" David moaned, the skin of his neck suddenly scraped over his vocal cords. Spike gestured to Xander that he should release, and the vampire soldier did so, reluctantly. "I wouldn't, if I were you," David repeated.

"And why is that, mate?" Spike asked him sardonically.

"First off, I should say that I'm responsible for all of your success here," David boasted. "I'm not really a human, I'm a lower being." D'hafrith shifted into his nonhuman guise, complete with rough gray-blue skin, horns, pointed ears, and the tufted beard, (though it wasn't as full as D'Hoffyn's beard - D'hafrith was just a kid, after all.)

"In the world I came from, you were exiles, defeated in Sunnydale," D'hafrith told Spike and Drusilla. "You had lost everything, even each other. But I came to the Hellmouth to raise chaos upon the living Earth, and as my first act I granted the wish of a mortal Slayer, Buffy Summers. She wished for happiness and intimacy with her beloved, the vampire Angel, and recieved that. However, that which she has requested has had consequences - your ascendancy in the town of Sunnydale."

"And now you're here to threaten us, is that it?" Spike muttered. "Do as you say or all the good stuff goes away, is that it?"

"Not at all!" David chirped, reverting to human face. "Well, yes, I mean, I could, with a moment's thought, cancel Buffy's wish, and return you to the sloughs of despond you took up in the alternate dimension. But I'm not about to do any such thing. I wouldn't even have brought it up." David chuckled. "Except that you beat me to it."

"Well, then, what is it?" Xander growled.

"I've got an offer for you," David told Spike.

"Oh, lord," Spike muttered. "It's Billy Fordham all over again."

"Knowing exactly who and what I am," David said as if Spike hadn't interrupted, "if you choose to make a wish, I will grant it for you."

"Now wait a second," Cordelia hissed, bringing herself into the conversation for the first time. "Buffy made a wish, and you turned it around and made her pay for it. Are you gonna do the same thing to Spike??"

"Not... intentionally," David told them all. "I'm going for maximum suffering for the mortals here, not you. But still, it's a risk. I won't pretend otherwise. The risk is what makes it so exciting, after all. You've got a sweet setup here, William the bloody a kay a Spike. Are you gonna stand pat, keep all of it, or risk it all on a wish and a dream? You could lose something, yeah, but you could win everything you've ever hoped for."

"Hmm..." Spike considered, then nodded to himself. "I'm gonna do it."

"No!!" Drusilla cried out, grabbing for Spike's hand. "Don't do it, love!"

"I know what I'm doing," Spike told her with a benevolent smile.

"The fire!" Drusilla exclaimed, brushing at herself. "It burns, it burns."

Spike noticed out of the corner of his mind how Dru was reacting, and was concerned, but he had already formed the words of the wish in his mind and determined to say it out loud. Somehow he couldn't stop himself: "I wish I had the Gem of Amarra."

part 3

(December 7th, 1998. Wishworld 1.)

Anya blinked in suprise. There had been no bright white light for her - her wish had not involved a reshaping of reality, just a simple space/time transport. It was darkness... deep darkness, broken only by the glittering stars and a few faraway streetlights that were actually working.

Why was it so dark? Anya had said three days... oh, three days before her wishstone got smashed. David had probably put her down to the minute. She had vaguely been thinking three days before Cordelia had become aware of this world, which would have been midmorning. But it was the middle of the night, just an hour or two after midnight if Anya's memories of how she lost her powers in this earth were straight, and she was stuck on the streets in a vampire-ridden town with no place to call home.

Well, was there any way she could get shelter? Anya checked herself. She was still wearing the clothes and carrying the bag she had had in the last world... holding a cross, a little holy water spritzer, and some cash. Let's see... she was still in the same street she had been before. There was a motel a few blocks away, but those would be prime vampire hunting grounds. Vampires could step across the threshold of hotel rooms, since they weren't permanent homes. At least, that was what Anya had heard from a scorned vampire hunter forty years ago.

On the other hand, she still had a key to her house in the last world, and that should get her safety for tonight at least. (As long as her fake parents hadn't changed the locks.) Anya got her bearings and set off for the house.

Uh-oh. Menacing, creature-of-the-night figure up ahead. It... it was vampire Xander!! Anya instinctively shied away... but something occured to her. Vampire Xander had a thing for Cordelia, in this universe. He had killed her. If... if he just killed Cordelia a little earlier, then Cordelia probably wouldn't be able to tell Giles about Anya and the wishstone, and Giles wouldn't be able to summon Anya and break her wishstone.

There were a few problems with that plan. This world had been wished up originally because it was suitable for the reality shift with Cordelia at the focus - that the alternate Cordelia was still alive at a time parallel to when the wish was made, and was occupying the same general location. If alternate Cordelia was killed before she could host her consciousness from the other dimension... would that create a paradox? Well, even if it did, that paradox would rewrite the destruction of Anya's powerstone, and she'd have her powers back. Good enough.

The other question was, how could she make Xander kill Cordelia any sooner? As opposed to letting Xander kill her, Anya?

Well, maybe she'd find a way. Putting her human innards in order, Anya stepped up towards the vampire, (though not too close.)

* * *

(March 1st, 1999. Wishworld 3.)

Spike winced as the white light surrounded him, shining almost painfully down on his body for a second. And then... he was standing alone in the same room that had a second ago been Drusilla's bedroom. It wasn't a bedroom though, in this reality... there were file cabinets thrown all about, papers, shelves that had once been full of office supplied tipped over. There were two dead bodies in the room too, drained of blood.

But none of this was really what caught Spike's attention though. What he noticed was that there was a large window in the room, a window facing southeast, and sunlight was streaming through it.

Shining right onto Spike himself.

He jumped back for a second in sheer surprise. He had made sure that that window was plastered up as securely as possible when he had taken over the City Hall - he didn't trust just paper or darkly tinted glass with Drusilla's safety. But none of that was there now. In fact, the glass of the window had been broken out too, possibly in the flurry of action during which Spike had killed those people and trashed the rest of the room.

But it soon became apparent that the sunlight wasn't anything that could hurt Spike. For one thing, his legs were still in the patch of radiance, and they weren't bursting into flames. "The... the gem of Amarra," Spike breathed, remembering his wish. Truly enough, there was a heavy ring on one of his fingers.

So... he had the Gem of Amarra, and he was killing people in City Hall in broad daylight. But... things were different. Spike wasn't nearly as nicely dressed as he had been - in fact, he had gone from riches to rags. And he obviously wasn't running City Hall anymore. So... where did he live in this reality. And... where was Dru?

Oh my go... Dru!! She had been freaking out as Spike made the wish - seeing a vision. There had been pain, and burning. Fire.

Was Drusilla dead in this reality??

Spike turned around and dashed off, heedless for his own safety. He didn't care about that - nothing could hurt him, not as long as he wore the gem. But he had to find Drusilla.

* * *

(November 19th, 1997. Wishworld 3.)

"Buffy?" Xander called out, starting up the stairs of the Summers house.

Cordelia went into the living room, looking around with idle curiosity. Then someone knocked on the front door. Cordy considered a moment, then shrugged and went over to open it.

What she saw when she opened the door took her breath away. A handsome young man (well, not that young, perhaps in his older twenties,) stood on the Summers porch. Cordelia liked to think that she didn't lose her calm, collected composure even at the sight of absolutely gorgeous hunks, but she could feel her heart start to beat faster. "Umm, uh - can I, er, help you?" she said. Yeah, great. Very cool, calm, and collected.

"Hi, sorry to bother you," mister Stud-muffin said in a warm, attractive voice. "My name is Phil Laurens, my car broke down and I was hoping that I could call Triple-A using your phone."

"Oh, sure, it's..." Cordy stalled. Not because Phil was so, um, distracting to look at, but because she wasn't sure off-hand where the Summers women kept their telephone. Finally, she realized how to solve the problem. "Follow me."

* * *

After he had checked out the upstairs, Xander headed back down and looked for Cordelia. He found her in the kitchen, almost drooling over some gen-X guy who was talking on the wall telephone.

"Uh, what's up?" he asked. "Who's he?"

"Phil," Cordelia supplied. "His car broke down."

"Uh, okay..." Xander muttered. Who Cordelia was interested in was none of his business, but for some reason the way she was staring at 'Phil' upset him.

"Thanks," Phil said, hanging up the phone. He turned, nodded at Xander, and addressed Cordy. "This isn't really your house, now is it?"

"Uh..." Cordy blushed. "No, it's a friend's." Phil's eyes flicked over to Xander again and Cordelia quickly explained "No, not him. Another friend, well, kind of a friend. She's not home."

"Oh," Phil agreed idly. "Any idea when she's gonna be back?"

"Nope," Xander told him. "We just came over to see if she was around - we're trying to find her. No luck."

"Damn," Phil swore, suddenly more intent. "That makes everything more complicated." Suddenly his appearance changed, his face inhuman, reddish and scaly. "I guess I'm gonna have to wait for her. And I can't let you two go free to warn her about me," he said, threateningly.

Xander froze. Cordelia didn't "AAACKK!" she screamed, running forward and swatting him ineffectively on the shoulder. "What are you? You looked so cute. People that attractive aren't allowed to be demons!!"

'Phil' just looked intently, and suddenly Cordy screamed again, in pain, as flames played over her body. Xander rushed up, grabbed Cordelia, and dragged her away. He grabbed a blanket off the couch on the way, and used it to put the fire out. It hadn't seemed to burn Cordy or her clothes at all though. Weird.

He could hear Phil's footsteps, following them, no, cutting them off at the front hall. There was only one way out. Xander hurried them down into the cellar, slamming the door and locking it. He just hoped that the demon couldn't follow them down there.

* * *

(Back in Wishworld 1.)

"Uh, hello there," Anya said nervously. Vampire Xander made as if to charge, but Anya whipped out the cross, backing him off. "None of that please. I... uh, I just wanted to get a look at you. You're Xander Harris, right?"

"What's left of him," Xander confirmed, chuckling evily. "Why did you want to look me up, gorgeous?"

"Uh... because I've heard of you," Anya said, desperately seizing on a ploy. "This girl at school - she talks about you all the time, and how you became a vampire."

Vampire Xander bared his fangs. Anya realized with sick amazement that there was a dead body on the ashphalt at his feet - he had just fed. "And who would that be, sexy thing??"

"Cordelia Chase," Anya announced boldy, and was rewarded by a double take from the vampire. "I think she has a crush on you, well, on the person you used to be. Or maybe the vampire you, come to think of it. Sometimes high-class girls like her get off on dangerous guys."

Xander smiled cruelly. "Now how about you, sweet neck?" he asked nastily. "What kind of guy do you get off on??"

Anya casually put one hand into her bag, while letting the other hand, holding the cross, waver. (That wasn't hard.) Sure enough, the vampire lunged at her, and Anya gave him a good taste of the holy water spritzer and dashed off towards the motel.

About a half an hour later, safe, in the house, (which had, it seemed, been abandoned by her fake parents in this alternate,) she considered what she knew of this universe. She had skimmed over all of it after Cordelia's wish had created it, savoring her accomplishment. The things she had learned during the course of her time-travel tour of its two-year lifespan could prove invaluable now. She needed to remember every detail she could...

* * *

(Wishworld 3 again. Bear with this...)

"Could you sit down," Xander grumped, "or change your pattern, or something?" Cordelia was pacing across the Summers' basement, and it was starting to annoy him. Partly because his attention was starting to stray more and more to the way the skirt of her dress hinted at contours underneath, and he was getting uncomfortable with it.

Not that he hadn't thought about Cordy Chase 'that way' before. Heck - it wasn't as if he was alone in it - she had to be one of the most lusted after girls at Sunnydale High. Over the past year, Cordy had played a starring role in quite a few of Xander's fantasies, in fact... including a rather embarassing 'Baywatch' dream... with Buffy...

But anyways. Since Cordelia, though, reserved the very finest of her hatred and contempt for Xander and Willow, though, Xander couldn't ask her out, or even go through his usual pattern when he liked a girl - hang around, give her little presents, and generally bother her until she caught on and rejected him. With Cordelia, the rejection would be instant. That was clear enough.

In some ways, Xander supposed he sublimated his attraction to Cordelia into the little insult contests, sarcasm rallys, and sniping matches that seemed to develop spontaneously whenever they were around. Basically, he just gave as good as he got, and occasionally put the first blow in. As a side effect, this earned him the friendly gratitude of Willow, who was thrilled that he was standing up to Cordy, and, (in Willow's mind at least,) defending her from the 'rich bitch.' If only she knew!!

"You're just sitting there," Cordelia pointed out. "We should be coming up with a plan."

"I have a plan," Xander announced smugly, sensing a sarcasm rally in the offing. "We wait, we stay alive. Buffy finds us, rescues us."

"How do you know that Buffy will find us?" Cordy shot back, somewhat agitatedly.

"Uh... this is Buffy's house," Xander pointed out, savoring the point. "Chances are she'll show up eventually."

"Well, I can't just sit here and wait," Cordelia complained with a cute pout. "I'm gonna go see if he's gone."

"Cordy!!" Xander said, jumping up in instinctive concern. "You can't do that. He might kill you!!" Why did he care so much? Was it just the thought of anyone, especially someone he knew, getting burned to a crisp? Or was there more...

"Well, then you go," Cordy replied evenly.

"What!! He might kill me!!" Xander said in a tone of voice that sounded like a panicked squeak.

"Well, you're a guy," Cordy pointed out, and Xander could tell that 'Cordelia logic' was coming. "You should be happy to risk your life for the sake of a lady. That's what real men do." Yep.

"Well... you're the one who let him into the house in the first place," Xander shot back desperately. "Can't see past a cute face, huh, Miss 'attractive people can NEVER be bad?'" Unfortunately, that criticism was a little double-edged at the moment... his ears were telling him that this conversation was a first-class example of how annoying and nasty Cordelia could be, but somehow his eyes... Xander's eyes, looking into her classic, lovely face, couldn't believe anything bad about her...

"Coward."

"Tramp."

"Loser!"

"Nympho!" Oh, wasn't that an image he loved to throw around about her...

"Wimp!"

"Slut!!"

And, all of a sudden, Xander couldn't take it any more, and he took a quick step towards Cordelia. Surprisingly, he realized that she had made a similar movement at exactly the same time, so that their faces were close enough to touch. As if drawn by magnetic attraction, his lips and hers met in a madly passionate kiss.

Part 4

(Wishworld 3 in November of 1997...)

All of a sudden, Xander had one of those moments where you feel like you were in free fall for a second and then land, really hard, on a very solid surface. He had been losing himself in the kiss, but now he felt started awake, and there was an instinctive decision to take stock of the situation.

He was kissing Cordelia Chase.

He was stuck in Buffy's basement, and the hottest girl in Sunnydale High, (not to mention the nastiest,) had her tongue in his mouth.

It wasn't an unpleasant situation that Xander found himself in by any means, although it was certainly unsettling, considering the hostile relationship that Cordelia and he had fallen into. Still, who was he to complain?

And then Cordelia looked like she was having a similar moment, and she broke away, and Xander did his best to let her go at the same moment. He didn't want to be hugging Cordelia when she didn't want to have anything to do with him.

"What just..." he muttered, and Cordelia looked up at him, anxiety written all over her face.

"We should get out of here, huh?" Cordy interrupted him, and Xander's mild hopes of, well, of something between himself and Cordelia crashed.

"Yeah. He probably isn't expecting anything now," Xander suggested. Of course he had no way to know that, but somehow being in this basement with Cordy, wanting to kiss her again, and knowing that she didn't want to kiss him back...

Death didn't seem nearly as bad.

* * *

(Wishworld 1.)

Anya concentrated, trying hard to remember. The seminal difference between this wishworld and the earth prime that they had begun with - between this world and all the others, in fact, was that Buffy Summers had not come to Sunnydale, (until, that was, Rupert Giles would summon her here after Cordelia's death.) Instead, Buffy's mother had found a school district in Cleveland willing to take Buffy in despite her problematic disciplinary record, and Joyce Summers herself had arranged employment at an art store, instead of commiting to the riskier venture of organizing a gallery in Sunnydale.

In Cleveland, Buffy had been met by Wesley Wyndham-Price, who, over the course of a few months, had talked her back into the life of an active Slayer. Under Wesley's hands-off direction, Buffy had fought supernatural menaces in Cleveland, dark forces of evil congreagating at a mystic nexus in nearby Adams County, and later on ranging over much of the Midwest and New England.

Meanwhile, in Sunnydale, the drama of the Harvest had played out without a Slayer on the scene. Jesse Turner was taken to the Master as a pre-Harvest appetizer and died in that underground church. (Willow was spared from a similar fate because of her shyness - the vampire Thomas had taken a friendlier girl to meet his Master.)

Rupert Giles, Watcher observer on the Hellmouth, hadn't figured out what was happening with the local vampires in time to stop the Harvest, not that he could do much by himself, without a Slayer to fight the Master's best warrior vampires.

When Cordelia had been brought forward as sacrificial victim before the Vessel, Luke, Xander had rushed forward blindly to try to save her. He had succeeded in knocking Cordy aside, letting her take cover, but the vampires had caught Harris instead. Luke had fed off of him, and the Harvest was about to come to its conclusion... if Xander Harris was drained completely, the Master would be freed and the Hellmouth would be opened, letting the demons come to Earth.

And then, the Master reconsidered. Stuck here, halfway inside the Hellmouth for so many years, he had gotten to know the demons of hell pretty well. They were a treacherous lot, which Master Nest could identify with - he was a traitor himself.

But it's never a good idea to invite a stronger traitor than yourself to town.

Luke knew his Master's wishes through the link instantly, and he stopped feeding off of Xander. The Master needed a little more time, to extracate himself from the Hellmouth without opening it all the way. Luke fed on a pretty sophomore named Hannah Benton, a little at a time, to finish the Harvest, and the Master rose.

He only came back to Xander a little later. This time, Luke looked him over more carefully. The mortal boy was a twerp, but there was a quality there - a strength, a discipline of will hidden deep beneath the surface. Half dead of blood loss, he was still trying to get to his feet and fight the vampires. Luke admired that.

"Come, little boy," he rumbled, grabbing Xander by the back of his neck, immoblizing him. Using his own fangs, Luke opened a wound in the palm of his own hand, and blood flowed. He had already drunk of Xander's blood, albeit a little longer ago than usual. Would vampirism still be effective?

"Drink, boy," he urged, putting his hand to Harris' mouth, and blood flowed between the mortal's lips. "Drink deep of the water of eternal life, and die." Reflexively, Xander swallowed, and then he stiffened and collapsed. "Sleep the deep sleep of oblivion tonight, my child," Luke continued, slightly less gruffly. "Tomorrow night you shall rise from the grave, and join in the army of my lord and Master."

Darla had been the one to find Willow, who was almost gibbering in panic for her own fate and fear for Xander. Darla hadn't been sure what attracted her attention to the pathetic little redhead - when she brought Willow to Master Nest, what she said was "Here's a tasty little treat for you. She's small but I'll bet you that she's tender."

But the Master saw something else in the girl Willow Rosenberg. Goodness - a purity of character that was rare in this day and age. Now, vampires despise goodness and trueness, but they also feel a certain adversarial, competitve relationship with it, of course.

And the Master, after six hundred years of raising other vampires, was well learned in the development of vampire personality. The 'newborn' vampire that established itself inside the body of the newly turned had no direct experience of their own with the world, or with hell, or any realm. Like all intelligent beings, though, they longed for self-identity, and, as opposed to newborn human babies, or baby demons, for that matter, they often had access to material with which to define themselves - the memories and personality of their human hosts.

However, a vampire's demon spirit had an innate sense of good and evil - good, of course, being that which was to be despised and rejected, and evil being that which was to be embraced. So, vampires tended to go one of three routes. If the human host was an evil or nasty person, the vampire would accept that character as a consistent whole, rather than disrupt its evil wholeness. If the victim had good and evil aspects, the vampire would pick and choose, taking whatever was evil or useful, and discarding the rest. But...

"This one is truly good," the Master told Darla. "If you cannot see into her soul through her eyes, Darla my child, you should be able to see the signs." If a truly good person was turned into an undead, the vampire essence would reject all of that person's personality, leaving a blank slate. Unable to define its identity from human memories, the vampire would have to accept the identity that other vampires required of it. The Master had heard of this phenomenon, but never really tried it, and he was curious. So he made Willow into his vampire child.

* * *

(Wishworld 3, back to March the first of 1999.)

Spike headed down into the sewers as soon as he could. Ironic that even with the Gem of Amarra, where he most wanted to be was amidst the shadows and the darkness. But right now, Spike needed to find out what had happened to his Drusilla. And the people who were most likely to tell him were other vampires.

He explored the dark tunnels for a while before he thought of checking the old factory, where he had been based before taking over City Hall. As soon as he pulled himself through the sewer access, a familiar face turned to him with a pleased smile. "Hey, Spike, baby. Whatcha doing back so soon??"

The hell! It was that damn Slayer!! Spike crossed over to her, ready for a fight. Buffy obviously wasn't, so Spike took the first blow, punching his worst enemy in the side of her face.

She went down with a snarl, and suddenly Spike realized his mistake. For Buffy Summers' face had shown its true nature in that moment of pain and fury. She was a vampire!!

Spike was immediately regretful. He hadn't even thought of that. It had been a reflex action on his part - see Buffy, hit her. Now he had struck another vampire with no provocation, something that was against the demon code of conduct he had been brought up to follow. By Dru... and Angelus...

Spike shook that thought away and quickly helped this vampire Buffy to her feet, muttering "Sorry about that, love. My mistake - something very unusual has happened."

And Buffy's return punch knocked him into the wall. "My mistake?? What the hell is wrong with you, 'William?'"

Spike groaned and looked up at the other vampire, really confused now. She wasn't looking like she usually did - her wardrobe was outrageous, to say the least. Buffy's hair had been dyed dark brown, and hung straight to brush her shoulders suggestively. She was wearing what looked like a black silk bustier that jacked up her breasts, enhancing and baring her cleavage. Her flat, breathtaking stomach was in full view between the bustier and the short leather miniskirt whe was wearing. High-heeled boots completed the 'Sexy as I wanna be slayer vampire megaslut' look.

The sight of her like this took Spike's breath away and made his prick jump to attention in an instant.

"I, uh, I..." he decided to go with a half-truth. "I was hit by a spell, darling. Amnesia spell. I didn't remember that you were a vampire now."

Buffy chuckled at that. "What, you didn't remember any of the last eighteen months?"

"No," Spike agreed. "Well, only bits and pieces here and there. Who turned you? Was it me?" Spike wasn't quite sure why he thought of that - well, there was the fact that she was here in his old hideout, which might well be his current home in this reality. And then, well, Spike knew that he wouldn't have enough strength to make her normally, but with the Gem of Amarra on his hand, he was probably the one vampire in all the world who had the best chance of taking Buffy the Vampire Slayer alive.

"Yep," Buffy said with an incredibly alluring pout. "You killed my Angel and made me a damned vampire. Thought I was going to do everything you said, too, just because you were the sire." A pleasedly sadistic look flitted through Buffy's eyes. "I cured you of that notion pretty quick, though."

"And what happened to Drusilla??"

Buffy's smile grew even more cruel. "She was killed. Burned alive."

"NOO!!!" Despite the nagging sensation that this was what was awaiting him in this world, Spike couldn't stop the scream. As soon as it passed away, Buffy grabbed Spike to her, pushing her lips to his in a bruisingly strong kiss. Spike tried to get away, not wanting to kiss another vampire at a time like this. But Buffy wouldn't let him go, and as he looked into her eyes, he realized something.

She knew how much pain this was causing him - she revelled in it.

* * *

(Back into the past of Wishworld 3...)

"AAHH!" Cordelia screamed as her clothes bathed in flames as she ran from Buffy's house. "Oh, god, I'm on fire!! Get it off me!"

"Roll it out," Xander yelled, going for the fire hose. Cordelia hadn't seemed to hear him, though, and was running down the front walk, still fully upright, when Xander got the hose working. The stream of cold water put the fire out, soaked Cordy down thoroughly from head to toe, and tore the outer layers of her clothing, (which had gotten the worst of the damage from the flames and were severely charred,) right off her body.

She was bending down to pick them up anyways when flame-assasin guy charged out the door. "Later, Cor," Xander screamed, dropping the hose and dashing for Cordelia's convertible. Cordy followed, though she hesitated for a second before getting behind the driver's seat.

"God, I'm soaking wet," she muttered. "This is going to ruin the leather upholstery."

Xander just waved her in anyways, and the car screeched off just in time to avoid another fireball.

When the two of them got back to the library, everyone was wearing tragedy masks. Not that things hadn't been serious before, but... Well, for starters, there was a new face around - this carribbean girl or something like that, named Kendra.

Kendra was a Slayer too - actually, she had thought she was the only Slayer, because she didn't know that Xander had brought Buffy back from death's door or something. She had been sent here to stop Spike's latest dastardly plan. Xander wondered idly if Buffy ever got sent places, or if all the evil she had to fight came to her at the Hellmouth.

Also, the Order of Taraka had apparently pulled a hit on Buffy at Career fair, of all places. It sounded like fire-demon guy had been a Tarakan too - hoping to catch her at home. Instead, he had gotten Cordelia and Xander.

Finally, Giles had figured out what Spike was after. The manuscript that a vampire had stolen last week was a text describing the mystic attractions of the american southwest in cryptic couplets. Giles had just gotten another copy, and had gone over it with a fine-toothed comb, trying to figure out what might have worked Spike up enough that he'd spring for the Order of Taraka, (who were obviously not the cheapest help that a demon could employ.)

"In the valley of the Sun, do many crypts lie," Giles quoted. "Upon the earth, and beneath it, high and low. In the deepest one, 'has long been told, resides the gem called 'Amarra.'"

"As poetry, it pretty much sucks," Cordelia commented. By this time she had changed into a gym shirt and jeans that she had at the school, but she still looked incredibly good to Xander. She was purer, somehow, with a casual appearance. Less coiffed. "There's no rhyme, the meter is irregular, and it definitely doesn't provoke an emotional response."

"The original verse was in archaic Greek, Miss Chase," Giles pointed out irritably. "And as for an emotional response, if Spike - or any vampire - gets ahold of the Gem, they will be completely invincible for as long as they wear it or hold it. Does *that* provoke a suitable emotional response?"

"So, what?" Buffy spoke up. "We've got the same book as Spike now. Can we find our way to the right crypt too??"

"That, I'm afraid, is the question over which the fate of the hellmouth swings," Giles sighed.

* * *

(Another dose of the history of Wishworld 1.)

Once he got to the surface, the Master started his plans carefully. He and his tribe, the Order of Aurelius, turned a few of the residents of Sunnydale, but not too many. They fed in considerably greater quantities, of course.

The Mayor of Sunnydale, Richard Wilkins the third, turned out to be a long-lived demon worshipper. The Master found this out only after he had drained Wilkins' blood - Richard the third was the same person as Richard the second, who had been a city councillor when the Master had first come to Sunnydale in 1936, and Richard the first, who had originally founded the American town of Sunnydale. He had picked up a few interesting magical artifacts, including a staff that could affect the minds of mortals.

Wilkins had used the staff to keep the supernatural from coming to the attention of either Sunnydale residents or outsiders. The Master developed new uses - blocking most awareness of Sunnydale from the minds of outsiders, (except new immigrants to the town - he always needed fresh blood,) and awareness of the outside world from residents, so that leaving would be inconceivable for them. Nothing would be allowed to disturb the little piece of vampire paradise that the Master was building here - an undead Shangri-la.

The vampires who had been Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris were raised in very different ways to begin with - Xander in the barracks of the warrior vampires, Willow in the private apartments of the Master and his favorite, Darla. Together, the Master and Darla molded the body of what had once been a very proper and shy little girl into everything that amused them - a cruel, hedonistic, and uncommunicative woman-beast. The vampire 'Willow' rose high in their favors, and when she learned that Xander Harris was one of the legion, she asked for and received him as her consort. Everything seemed to be going as well as promised for the vampires of Sunnydale.

But that was when tragedy struck, in the form of the human residents of Sunnydale who had banded together to fight the vampire invasion. Darla was killed, struck through the heart by a crossbow bolt from an unidentified assailant, as she fed.

The Master didn't leave his chamber in the Bronze for a year and a day, and only allowed food to come in. Preferably brunettes - never blondes. Feeding off a blonde would remind him too much of his favorite

Part 5

(1st March 1999. Wishworld 3.)

Avenger headquarters was a lonely mansion up on top of Crawford's hill. From there, the Slayers, their watchers, and the other demon hunters of Sunnydale waged war against the vampires that infested Sunnydale. Most importantly, the Avengers tried, without success so far, to kill the two most dangerous undead that the world had ever seen - Spike the bloody, invulnerable with the Gen of amarra, and Buffy the Slayer-Vampire.

"I almost had it away from him, too," Faith rambled on to Kendra's watcher, Sam Zebuto, as he bandaged her wounds. "I jumped him as he was making his way in to City Hall, and went straight for the mojo ring. I had it off of his finger for a second, too, I could tell. His skin was starting to smoke. But then, he sucker-punched me with an uppercut from his left. Right here." Faith pointed to her split chin, still bleeding slightly. "I lost my grip on the ring, and he got it back on faster than you could say geronimo. He grabbed me and started sucking, but I was still strong enough to send my knee into the family jewels. The ring might make him impossible to kill, but he's not immune to pain. Once I was free, I headed for the hills and let him go his own way. Man, I hate to let him go like that, knowing that he's on his way to feed, but there was no way I was gonna get the kill today. You know what I mean?"

"Yes, indeed," Zebuto said somberly. It was the only way he seemed to talk, especially these days.

"So, what's on the agenda for tonight?" Xander called, as the Avengers entered the room for the sunset business meeting. Rupert Giles, Faith's watcher. 'Crusher' Cordy - a cheerleader turned one of the most badass chick vampire killers in Sunnydale - and with Faith and Kendra around, that was saying something. Kendra herself, of course. Wesley Price - a hellmouth expert from the Watcher's council - invaluable to the cause. Janna Calderash. Hogan Martin. A couple of other Sunnydale citizens turned vamp-killers - the Avengers numbered twelve in total at the moment.

"I am!!" The voice was unfamiliar to everyone. With a flash of